The paper reviews the policy response of major central banks during the 2007-08 financial market turbulence and suggests that there is scope for convergence among central bank operational frameworks through the adoption of those elements that proved most instrumental in calming markets. These...

The paper presents a methodology for measuring the clarity of central bank communication, illustrating it with the case of the European Central Bank (ECB) in 1999-2007. The analysis identifies the ECB's written communication as clear about 95 percent of instances, which is comparable to, or even...

Global excess liquidity is sometimes believed to limit sovereign monetary policy even in large economies, including the euro area. There is much discussion about what constitutes global excess liquidity and our approach adjusts liquidity for longer-term interest rate and output effects. We find...

This paper contributes to the debate on the role of money in monetary policy by analyzing the information content of money in forecasting euro-area inflation. We compare the predictive performance within and among various classes of structural and empirical models in a consistent framework using...

We analyze the European Central Bank's (ECB's) response to the global financial crisis. Our results suggest that even during the crisis, the core part of ECB's monetary policy transmission-from policy rates to market rates-has continued to operate, but at a decreased efficiency. We also find...

Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. TAXONOMY OF UNDERLYING INFLATION INDICATORS -- III. FEATURES OF THE INDICATORS -- IV. FORECASTING METHODOLOGY AND ASSESSMENT OF FORECASTING PERFORMANCE -- V. CONCLUDING REMARKS -- References.

The financial health of central banks and its relation to policy outcomes has recently been recognized as an important policy issue. While case study evidence clearly indicates that weak central bank finances can hamper effective policy implementation, the question of whether central bank...

Determinants of central banks' profitability are studied using a statistical analysis of their balance sheets, country characteristics, and the macroeconomic and institutional environments in which they operate. Central banks at both tails of the distribution of profits generally operate in...